Page 74 of Raisa's Cursed Ravens
I reach up, smear blood across her cheek, just to know she’s real. “Run now, little bird.”
“No.” She presses her mouth to mine, desperate and wild, and I kiss her back with everything I have left.
There’s shouting in the distance—more men, more danger—but all I can see is her.
I want to tell her I’m sorry, but the darkness is coming fast now, curling in around the edges of my vision.
I reach for her, but my arm won’t work.
“Run, Raisa.”
Her face is the last thing I see.
Then nothing.
13
Blood and Feathers
Raisa
Everything is muffled, theworld narrowed to the impossible weight of Sable’s head in my lap. His breath is a wet rattle, more memory than sound.
I clutch his jaw with both hands, willing his eyes open, willing the blue lips and pale skin to flush with color again.
“Sable.” My voice comes out wrong, barely there, so I try again, screaming. “Sable!”
His eyelids twitch. Or maybe it’s just the last shudder of nerve and muscle giving up. He looks dead, his skin drained of all the warm, ruddy gold I love so much. The wound in his side is a ragged slit, pulsing each time the feeble beat of his heart forces more blood onto the moss.
I press my palm against it, but my hand is too small to matter.
His blood is everywhere. It’s in my hair, under my nails, in the hollow between my breasts.
My body shakes, but it’s not from fear. It’s not from grief, either. It’s the same wild, vibrating surge that ran through me the night I turned men to stone, the night I learned my hands could split open fate itself.
But I don’t want to split the world.
I just want Sable to open his eyes.
Behind us, the forest howls. I hear the crash of boots, the shriek of wounded men, the primal, animal fury of my brothers.
Each heartbeat hammers more panic into me. Sable can’t die. Not now. Not ever.
A boot lands inches from my face. Onyx, panting, knees stained black, his eyes like winter ice. He drops to his knees, grabbing my shoulder.
“Raisa. We have to run.”
I jerk away, clutching Sable’s head against my chest. “I’m not leaving him.”
Onyx’s jaw clenches, grief and anger twin flames in his eyes.
Behind him, Bran staggers into view, one arm dangling uselessly, the other smeared with blood that’s not his own. He takes one look at us and stumbles forward, collapsing beside Sable’s like a supplicant at a shrine.
“Don’t be dead,” he mutters. “You idiot, don’t you dare.”
I stroke Sable’s cheek with my thumb. “Please,” I whisper. “Don’t go.”
But he’s already gone. Even the weak pulse that was fluttering in his throat has gone still.
